


phantom limb

by Charona



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Formula E RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: Bonding, Break Up, Coping with Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Eating Disorders, Five Stages of Grief, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Hangover, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Up, Men Crying, Mental Breakdown, Ocean, Sad, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, kind of happy end, this deals with a lot of dark stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2020-07-12 05:24:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19940923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charona/pseuds/Charona
Summary: It’s the annual meeting of a triumvirate of companions.Age differences, language barriers and conflicting pasts mean nothing whenever they come together to commemorate a mutual friend, someone they loved one way or another and lost forever.Like every year Daniel, Charles and Jean-Eric meet up at Nice after the French GP and drown out their sorrow with a shared bottle of whisky, a pack of cigarettes and their memories. They have to decide on how to handle their loss, their hopes and fears – and everything entailed.Maybe it’s time to stop grieving.





	1. the blue hour

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, folks, I'm back!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING is serious here.  
> This is... dark. Really, even for my terms. Please be careful and take care of yourselves, guys, always! 
> 
> This is my attempt of coping with what happened to Jules and some other stuff... this really hurts, but it's kind of therapeutic and I hope, you join me on this journey. It’s important to mention that this is only fiction, I don’t want to hurt anyone and I have no idea what really happened.  
> It is a really important piece to me and I hope you guys know, how much I appreciate and love you all! <3 
> 
> Let's get this done. Part one of three.

**Sunday morning**

_Daniel_ wakes up and the image of soft brown eyes is imprinted to his eyelids. He stares at the white ceiling of the room and blinks a couple of times, trying to calm down his rapid breathing. Small droplets of sweat coat his forehead and he covers his mouth to drown out the strangled sob that tries to claw its way up his throat. He presses his eyes shut, knuckles firmly pressed against his lips. But the images cling to his tightly shut eyelids, hazy and stinging. A warm smile, welcoming brown eyes, black-and-white photographs on a light blue bedroom wall.  
A tear seeps through the floodgate made of his skin and deflection and steeliness. Daniel knows, it’s that time of a year, he knows what’s going to happen in the evening and it casts an outsized black shadow over the race, the weekend, the last weeks. Goosebumps spread on his naked chest and he lets a hand trace over the crook of his arm and the plain black ink there. It calms him down enough to school his breathing and the images ghosting through his dreams for days fade into the dim air of his hotel room, when he finally opens his eyes.  
The sun is about to rise outside the large windows, soft rays of morning light seep through the thin fabric of the curtain. They draw silky patterns onto the neutral beige carpet and the white bed sheets. Daniel wipes his face and whisks away the remainders of images of the blurry face he dreamt about and turns around to the slouched sleeping form to his left. 

The first word that comes to his mind whenever he sees Max sleep is _young_. Max looks like a child, curled up on his right, cradling the edge of his pillow in one hand and completely entangled in the blanket around his shoulder. His mouth hangs open a little bit and his soft exhales fill the air with a content rhythm of innocent carelessness.  
Daniel smiles at the sight and closes his eyes again, leaning into Max’s warmth a bit more and hoping he won’t wake him up. Max deserves rest. Especially before the race.  
Daniel scans his hotel room and grins wolfishly at the pile of dark blue and yellow clothes on the floor, nonchalantly scattered around the bed and a voiceless proof of how insignificant jarring colours can be in comparison to truthfully felt emotion. And feats of valour in the name of cunning love – a big middle finger to the world.  
Daniel props himself up on his elbow and brushes Max’s cheek with his lips softly, before sinking back into the fluffy cushions and bracing himself for the day.  
It’s a race day and that itself is special, even after all the years of racing and the rhythm of stress and built-up tension Daniel’s mind got used to over the past decade. His fingers itch and he feels the familiar excitement circling through his veins, but it’s tinted this time, mixed with blackness, inexplicable sadness and regret. 

For several minutes Daniel watches the dust particles dancing through the twilit room and finally gets up, gives in to the itch and urge to move.  
He grabs his phone from the night stand and his key card from the sideboard and leaves the hotel room as quietly as possible. 

The early morning in Le Castellet is quiet, sleepy and lulled in by the tired chirping of birds and the ever milling ocean sending calm waves to the coast of the Cote d’Azur constantly. The streets are empty, the inhabitants of the small village still firmly cradled by the warmth of their beds.  
Daniel gets coffee for Max and himself from a tiny café that serves the few early adventurers or stranded party animals the tide of the last Saturday night washed up at its rusty entry door.  
Daniel makes a small detour through the older streets, through cobbled stone alleys and alongside medieval brick walls, in order to get some fresh air.  
His dream clings to him together with the salty sea air, his aftershave and the chilly morning dew in his sweater. It’s not going to be a normal race day and Daniel dreads the upcoming hours, questions being asked, memories being forced back into his conscious.  
_Why are we doing this then?_ , he thinks partly angry and partly desperate. _Are we all just masochists, who love the pain of thinking about him? Is that why we’re doing all this shit?_  
The seagulls circling through the cool breeze above the harbour, tiny white specks in the bright blue sky, don’t offer any answers and Daniel returns to the hotel cradling the hot coffee cups. 

Max is awake, when he enters their room, awake and taciturn to an extent that scratches the borders of muteness. It’s nothing extraordinary. Max Verstappen is like a new born puppy when he wakes up, disoriented, clumsy and sulky in a way that doesn’t fall far from disagreeable. _He’s still cute, though_ , Daniel thinks with a soft smile. 

Before he can hand him the coffee as a peace offer or wish him a good morning, a phone chimes with a demanding and shrill metal riff.  
Max grunts and lifts an eyebrow, when Daniel answers the call without taking any further notice of him, discarding the coffee cups casually on the side board.  
He disappears into the bathroom before answering the call and Max draws a deep intake of breath to calm himself. Goosebumps spread on his naked arms and they aren’t sleep related. 

This scene appears to him like a recurring punch to the gut and the hurt tastes familiar, yet bitter, expected, yet surprising in its severity. During the last weeks Daniel has abandoned him again and again whenever his phone demanded his attention and sometimes he downright _ignored_ Max when he sat directly in front of him at the dinner table.  
It tears at Max’s composure and his patience and today the latter finally snaps.  
He doesn’t even try to eavesdrop the muted conversation Daniel has with an apparently very important person on the other end of the line and rummages through his suitcase on the search for his clothes. 

When Daniel returns a couple of minutes later, Max is dressed in shorts and a loose black hoodie and almost bumps into him on his way to the hotel room door. True surprise flashes across Daniel’s face, who expected Max to be still in bed, and it settles in his brown eyes, when he sees Max’s clenched jaw.  
“Hey, where are you headed?”  
“As if you care!”  
Venom drips from Max’s snapped words and Daniel frowns, blinks feverishly and takes a careful step in Max’s direction as if not to scare him.  
“What’s going on?” His voice is calm, but his eyes are wary, scan Max and his body language, which is spoiling for a fight in its tenseness and defiance.  
Max laughs sarcastically and shakes his head, one hand firmly clutching the door knob.  
“I could ask you the same, Daniel. Every time your fucking phone rings, you run off to God knows where and ignore me. But you know what? I don’t care, please, carry on. I’m going for a run.”  
Suddenly Daniel huffs and anger flickers across his tense features.  
“You really have no idea, do you?” Daniel snaps and the muscles in his neck flex visibly.  
“How?!” Max yells, throwing his hands up in a defiant gesture. “How the hell am I supposed to know, Daniel, huh? You don’t talk to me. I feel like an intruder at times and I’m done waiting for you to sort out your shit. I’m not a plaything.”  
“Because you never asked.” The words are in Daniel’s mouth and out in the small room between them before he can think about them properly. His hands twitch and sour anger rises up his throat, makes him blind for the hurt in Max’s blue eyes. “You don’t know, what’s on my mind, because you only care about yourself and your success and nothing else! You don’t even know what I’m going through right now. So please, go on, fuck off.” Daniel’s voice grows louder with every word and the last two aren’t far off from an infuriated shout. Max opens the door without looking at him, he holds his breath and bites back an incisive remark.  
“Get your act together before the race, Daniel. You shouldn’t drive like this.” is all he says and then the door falls shut behind him.  
“Fuck you!” Daniel spits against the dark wood, vibrating in its hinges. 

Suddenly all strength leaves his body, the tension drains and he slumps down onto the bed. His shoulders tremble with a voiceless, tearless sob that works its way up his throat and burns in his lungs. Daniel presses a hand to his chest with a pained huff.  
He drops his head to his hands and closes his burning eyes. He rubs his flat palms over his curls, until the pain in his scalp drown out the one in his stomach. 

His phone chimes again and it’s a message this time.  
“Meet you in Nice at 9 p.m, as usual. Good luck for the race, mon ami. JEV.”  
Daniel drops the phone to the rumbled mattress. Max’s warmth still lingers in the sheets and Daniel bites down on his cheek until the coppery taste of blood blooms in his mouth. 

_André_ wakes up to complete silence and that’s a first. Jev is an early bird and André’s gotten used to waking up alone with almost no warmth sticking to the sheets on Jev’s side of the bed anymore and the Parisian joining him eventually with freshly brewed coffee later on. Normally Jev is busy making breakfast or having a constructive conversation with cheetah – both things André grew inexplicably fond of over the years. The smell of roasted coffee beans or the mindless French blabber in an answer to high-pitched meows never cease to make the German smile despite the early hour. Other sounds fill the morning air, water running in the shower, music playing in the living room. Sometimes Charlie joins them at free weekends for breakfast. The fast tapping of her tiny feet and her carefree laughter compose a lively rhythm, resounding through the apartment. Usually she’d fling herself onto the bed and on top of André, pestering him with loving kisses from sticky lips smeared with fig jam. Jev would stand in the doorway, barefooted and with a broad smile. 

Today the Parisian flat lays in silence. Grey morning dew outside filters the sunlight and makes the bedroom look like it is filled with ripples of ice. Andre’s hand searches for Jev’s warmth next to him, but the duvet is neatly arranged, the pillow wrinkle-free and André sighs at the meaning of it all, when his sleepy mind combines the indications. 

He wipes his face and waits another second, before he gets up and starts his search for Jean-Eric.  
Cheetah roams about in the hallway and rubs her head against André’s shin, when he prods toward the kitchen.  
He feeds the hungry Bengal cat and continues his search for the Frenchman.  
The beautiful thing about Paris for André has always been the early hours of a midsummer Sunday.  
Despite the reputation of being a city that never sleeps it’s around sunrise that it’s the most calm and beautiful. The buzz of the night has ended, party folks staggered into their beds, and the stream of Vespa’s, delivery services and tourists on the streets runs dry in a monotonous dripping of engines and distinct conversations. It’s almost quiet in comparison to the energetic, borderline electric pulse the city vibrates with on a weekday.  
André enjoys the lightness, the romance, the atmosphere. And he enjoys what it does to the light in Jev’s apartment, the soft blue stripes it draws onto the artwork in his living room and the white kitchen cabinets. 

He finds Jean-Eric on the balcony, sitting on the bench, with one knee propped up against the glass table, smoke from a cigarette rising lazily into the already muggy urban air.  
“Haven’t got any sleep, mh?” The German says instead of a greeting and Jev sighs deeply before shaking his head. André stands in the balcony door for a second and contemplates on what to do. He bites his lip, staring at Jev’s silhouette which screams tiredness and the distance, André’s grown used to during the last weeks. He knows, what’s going on.  
He sighs and returns to the kitchen, switches on the coffee machine and gathers large mugs from the cupboard. 

“Here, that helps against the tiredness and it’ll warm you up a little. You must be freezing.” He says, when he returns with the hot mugs filled with steaming brew and carefully sits down next to Jev. He wants to drape an arm around his shoulder, but Jev detangles himself from the touch without looking at André.  
It’s not new to the German, but it stings nevertheless, the aloofness, the cold wavering around Jev lately. He takes a long drag from his cigarette, tilts back his head and exhales the smoke, while closing his eyes, ignoring or tolerating André’s glare. 

André has never been a fan of smoking, the taste, the smell, but he’s never found anyone more attractive than Jean-Eric and somehow he even makes smoking look endearing.  
There are photos of Jev smoking on André’s camera and they all have a certain energy and atmosphere to them. Jev smoking at the railing of a yacht in the Monegasque harbour, framed by a bright orange sunset. Jev holding a cigarette in one and his helmet in the other hand on an old racetrack in Belgium. Jev naked in bed, leaning against the headrest and lazy curls of smoke forming a soft curtain around his face.  
_It’s because he looks free_ , André thinks, while watching Jev closely. _Free and relaxed_.  
Now he looks troubled and his reddened eyes speak of sleepless nights and hurtful thoughts.

“When do you have to leave?” He asks instead, keeping his tone neutral and features schooled.  
Jev looks at his wrist just to realise he isn’t wearing a watch and wipes his face, before cradling the bright golden porcelain in his icy and ashen hands.  
“The flight leaves at eight.”  
André just nods, void of words, drained of opportunities to make this right.  
He knows, what’s going on, what Jev is going to do today.  
The annual meeting of the men who lost someone special forever.  
André fidgets with the coffee mug and takes a cigarette from the pack and lights it with a deep frown. Camels. Jev’s old brand. He doesn’t smoke often, only around Jev and just a couple of times a year. In this month alone he has had more cigarettes than in the whole of 2018 combined.  
The first drag doesn’t even make him cough anymore, the smoke fills his lungs and leaves them in a soft white cloud, when he exhales the bitter taste into the morning air.  
Jev plays with his phone absentmindedly and they sit next to each other in complete silence, while the sun climbs up higher over the facades of the opposite buildings slowly, but undeterred.  
André sighs voicelessly.  
He sees the change Jean-Eric has gone through during the last weeks, the silence, the rift that has opened up between them and does so every year around this time, dark and consuming. He sees it and he hates it more than ever, because things changed. _He_ changed.

“You don’t have to do this. You could stay here.” He says nevertheless, because he loves Jean-Eric with all his heart and to see him like this hurts like someone drove a spear of ice through his stomach. 

“So I can watch you pack your bags?”  
His voice is cold, but André sees blazing heat in the depths of Jev’s brown eyes. Anger. Betrayal.  
André’s heart skips a beat.  
“What?”  
“Did you really think, you could keep this from me? From me?! I mean, seriously?!”  
He holds the cigarette in a tight grip, ash drops onto the glass table surface and crumbles into tiny pieces that get carried away by a soft breeze. “You signed with Porsche. Last week. You lied to me. For days.”  
Like always when Jean-Eric is upset his accent grows heavier, more distinctive and sharper despite the almost lyrical soft flow of the French language.  
André thinks about that, about the beauty of French, Jev’s beauty in order to shield himself from the thought his brain wants to put into words so badly.  
_He knows_.  
“You know.” he states matter-of-factly. Jev snorts a sarcastic laugh and takes a quick drag from the cigarette, before nodding briskly.  
“Yeah, I know. I got a call from Takako. She asked, when we will all meet up for one last dinner in Paris before you head to Stuttgart. Did you even _think_ about telling me the truth before that?”  
“Of course, I did, but…”  
Blood rushes through his ears. He can’t continue that sentence and it fuels Jean-Eric’s anger even more.  
“But what? You didn’t know, how? You didn’t know how to strike your camp here and break up with me?”  
“No.” André cuts him off decisively, exhaling pungent smoke through his nostrils. “No, Jev. I’m not leaving you. I’m just…”  
Jev stubs out his cigarette with a clenched jaw. André watches him like a deer stares into the headlights of an approaching car.  
“Just what, huh? Just what, André?!”  
“I had to. Jev, I can’t stay. I needed to get out.” His voice tumbles and André swallows loudly. “I’m suffocating. I can’t live like this.” He blinks feverishly, when burning tears cloud his vision.  
Jev gets to his feet and shakes his head rapidly.  
“No, you know what? I know, why you’re leaving and why you didn’t tell me earlier. You’re done fighting and losing against me. And you know that I’m in Nice tonight and why. You think I’m not strong enough to cope with you leaving, right? Not today. So you lied to my face instead.”  
André’s brain soaks up the words, but can’t fathom their meaning.  
“What?” he mutters instead, the cigarette in his hand having smouldered down to the filter and burning his fingertips.  
“You heard me.” Jev’s usually warm eyes are filled with sharp coldness. He grabs his phone and the pack of cigarettes and turns toward the door. 

His last words resemble a thrust to André’s heart with a dagger of steely ice. They turn the warm morning air into brittle freezing cold and his soul into a clot of black frost. They make his breathing hitch and heart stop mid-beat.  
“Pack your things and leave, André. When I return tomorrow, I want you gone.”

_Charles_ has only had two dreams in the recent weeks. A nightmare and good dream.  
They are always the same and they alternate every night. 

The nightmare starts with a race and rain. The race soon turns into chaos and the rain intensifies to a huge thunderstorm. The fine threads of rain droplets get replaced by pelting waterfalls, which hit his helmet like stones. Charles tries to contact his engineers, to ask them to red-flag the race, to do _something_ , but his radio isn’t working. Heavy wind gusts catch the car on the straight and Charles’s breathing hitches every time one of the wheels slips from his decreasing control.  
Suddenly he hits a curb forcefully, which has been hidden by a huge puddle of water, he loses the rear end of the car and slips over tarmac. His car spins around and Charles hits the brakes in order to get it back under control, but his damp gloves slip from the wet steering wheel.  
Suddenly he gets hit. The impact knocks all air out of Charles’s lungs and his teeth clatter violently. Pain shoots up his legs and arms, although his body remembered to take the hands away from the steering wheel. He hears metal screeching and carbon fibre crunching. Green and grey and brown specks whirl in front of Charles’s eyes, when he gets pushed into the gravel. His mind goes blank at the dancing, intertwining colours. Then - blackness.  
Charles wishes, the dream would end there, but it never does.  
When he opens his eyes, he sees stewards and security rushing towards his wrecked car. He swallows the taste of bile. The impact has troubled his stomach. His laboured breathing fogs his visors and he lifts a trembling hand to open it.  
_Who hit me?!_ he asks himself. _Who is that idiot that nearly killed me?_  
He repeats the question to one of the medics, who bends over him and tries to examine him.  
Suddenly his attention gets caught by the wreck to his left and his eyes widen, before he hauls himself to his feet and crawls out his car. His ankle gets stuck in the mess that once has been his front wing and the metal cuts through the fabric of his suit. Charles doesn’t even notice.  
His eyes follow the trail of blood drops leading to the pile of deformed silver carbon fibre.  
“Oh, no. No. No, no, no, no, no.” He sees more red mingling in muddy puddles of rain water in the gravel.  
“Oh, God, please, no.”  
The vehicle is stuck in the wall. For some reason there is no barrier, no soft tyre fence, but a solid stone wall and the car smashed it at full speed, reducing it to pieces and chunks.  
Charles _feels_ , that this is bad. That this is _terrible_. He stumbles towards the wreck and his foot hits a plate, a part of the chassis. Silver with a black number and splashes of blood on it.  
Charles sees the number and the piece of carbon fibre slips from his hand, as if it had burnt his skin.  
A voiceless scream rises up his throat and Charles sinks to his knees.  
_No, no, no, no, no. Not him. Please, no. Not him. Not him. Oh God, let me wake up!_  
He feels like suffocating, drowning in grey and pain and _God, no, please, I can’t breathe _. His world starts to turn and he pulls off his helmet and balaclava, throws it aside and finally there is a scream. Soul crushing agony tears through the rain, when his forehead sinks to the red and grey and brown ground and his fingernails dig into the soil until they break off and his hands start to bleed.  
He screams and screams and -__

____

__His own enduring scream wakes him up eventually and Charles cries and cries until he’s drained and empty and physically exhausted enough to fall back asleep._ _

The second dream is somewhat better and somewhat worse. It’s a blue dream. His brother always called them blue dreams, because they take place in the sky or in high towers, aloof and full of wonders, clouds and stars – or stairs. Charles stands in front of a wide stair and its steps get lost in the clouds. For some reason he isn’t able to look downstairs, only upward and there he sees a figure coming towards him. First the light dazzles him, but then he sees that warm smile and recognises his best friend, his brother, his soulmate. He sees his smile, the soft curve of his jaw, the untameable brown curls.  
“Hey, Charles.” He says softly as ever, an open grin spreading his full lips. “How are you, man? I haven’t seen you in a long time. I’ve been waiting for you.”  
And then he hugs him.  
Not in their mandatory way of greeting each other with a side hug and clap to his back, but a true hug. One of those embraces, that knock all air out of your lungs and replace it with warmth and solidity and love.  
He hugs him like they haven’t seen each other just yesterday. They have played cards on the sofa and talked about Charles’s next races and the possibility of him becoming champion. 

It’s in that moment, that Charles remembers _everything_ , the rain, the shock, the waiting, and a strangled sob detangles itself from his throat. He clings to the warmth, the solidity and love.  
The second he wants to look up at his face and say something, _anything_ , he feels the dream drifting away from him.  
He wants to cling to it, stay there on these steps, but the image flees from him, evaporates into clouds, no matter how hard he tries to grasp it in his hands. It slips though his fingers like smoke and Charles wakes up with a dry sob that shakes his very core. 

__Both dreams scare him to death and today he wakes up drenched in sweat again. He groans and presses his palms against his eyelids. He waits until the sob builds up to the extent that it gets painful and curls up into his bed, pressing his forehead against his knees.  
He doesn’t even cry anymore. He just waits until it is over. _ _

__Once the wave of pain washed over him and draws back into the depths of the pitch black ocean again, he sighs and wipes his eyes with shaky hands._ _

Then he gets up and starts his day. Because he has to. It's a race weekend and he has a job to do.  
It’s the same routine as always. Coffee, bathroom, paddock-ID and phone. The quietude in the hotel room is crushing, but Charles grew strangely fond of the silence. He functions on auto pilot, gets dressed, drinks his coffee, texts his team and makes his bed.  
Then he sees the bag on his kitchen counter and a cold shiver runs down his spine.  
_Why did we agree to this?_  
The unvoiced question remains unanswered. He grabs the bag and looks inside. A carton of cigarettes and a Whisky bottle, Camels and a Talisker Scotch, peaty and strong. 

Charles grabs his purse and the bag, while clenching his jaw. His soft sigh is the first and only sound he makes this entire morning and it gets drowned out by the hotel room door falling shut behind him. 


	2. phantom pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! 
> 
> So this goes out to my special and lovely friend **lucianasunrise** for cheering me on and being a brilliant motivation coach over the past days ;) 
> 
> A quick warning: The tags still apply, so please be careful! I've been planning this chapter for almost two months now, I hope you guys like it despite the pain and all the negativity!

_Jev_ gets a text from André the second he parks his car and turns off the engine.  
**”I’m scared, Jev. I wasn’t strong enough to tell you earlier. Not because of today, but because of us and what it means for us. I want to shield you from all harm in this world and I failed. I’m sorry. Let’s sort this out, please. Together. I miss you.”**  
He looks at the screen for a second, one hand covering his mouth thoughtfully. His fingertips ghost over his lips and reminisces all the times they have touched André’s. The first time was sloppy and tasted like alcohol, the next have been hungry, belligerent, euphoric and angry. They’ve had it all, kisses in all their variety, from a small, quick peck at the kitchen stove to a deep and meaningful valour of love in bed.  
Jev sighs and puts the phone away, before getting out of his car. 

_Daniel_ arrived earlier, evading most of his press duties and being quick about everything else. He stood in front of the wooden balustrade marking the end of the viewing platform and the parking lot.  
Now he leans against the hood of Jean-Eric’s vintage Maserati and clicks his tongue, when Jev approaches him. He changed his race suit for a pair of jeans a grey shirt. A tired smile decorates his lips, when he nods at the car.  
“Très chic.”  
Jev just chuckles and then they collide in a bone crushing hug, a true embrace. They’ve met earlier today, but under the watchful eyes of hundreds of people and thousands of cameras and they had barely any chance to exchange more than a quick greeting and some mandatory jokes.  
Now they hug each other properly and Jean-Eric buries his nose in Daniel’s curls before pressing a light kiss to his cheek.  
Daniel grins at him and draws a deep intake of breath before nodding.  
“I’m good, man, it’s fine.”  
“It’s not, you would have deserved points.”  
“I know, but that’s the sport. Sometimes it sucks.”  
Jev nods and they turn towards the ocean to take in the view presenting itself to them.  
The coast road clings to the steeply rising cliffs behind them like an anxious snake and it’s accompanied by scattered trees forming a pattern of grey and beige and green. A cobble-stoned path leads down to the dunes and gets swallowed by the beach, until there is nothing left of it, only white sparkling sand dotted with washed out stones and rotten tree logs.  
The Mediterranean Sea is calm and the murmur of approaching waves is a silent sweeping in the background. The water sparkles in all the colours of the rainbow as the slowly setting sun casts long stripes of orange light onto the dark blue surface. The white foam caps dance in the distance like mountain tops covered with snow. 

“It’s nice.” Daniel says and nudges Jev’s shoulder. They still lean against the silver hood, when the roaring of an engine interrupts the silence and a car approaches the parking lot. 

_Charles_ is tired to the bone after an exhausting and emotional race day and he is the last one to arrive at the meeting place. He gets out of his cab and pays a hefty tip to the driver, before squinting his eyes against the sun and nodding at the two men waiting for him.  
Jev kisses Charles on his cheeks and the youngster grins at them tiredly.  
“Congratulations, great drive.”  
“Thanks. It was fun today and calmer than I expected.”  
Daniel nods knowingly and leads their way down to the beach. Jev toes of his slippers and digs his feet into the slowly cooling sand. A soft smile plays around the corners of his mouth and the fresh breeze tucks at his loose shirt.  
“This is such a beautiful place.”  
Charles points at a formation of rocks to their left, washed out by the constant tide and black in the fading daylight.  
“We always met up there after dinner. Sometimes we would go for a swim or pick up shells and try to hear the whooshing inside.” Charles smiles at the memory. “After all the hours at the karting track we would be too deaf to hear a thing. But it was nice. My brother would come to pick us up later and sometimes we would hide behind those rocks, so he wouldn’t find us. Or we’d have a whole bucket of shells we desperately wanted to bring home with us.”  
“Wow, your mother must have been really dotty about you two.” Daniel smirks ironically and slumps down onto a weather-beaten piece of driftwood.  
“Nah, my mother liked it actually. _His_ mother was a bit sceptical at times. We dragged along tons of shells.”  
Charles wipes his cheeks and kneels down next to Daniel, rummaging through the bag.

A moment later Daniel looks at the unlit cigarette between his fingers. He remembers brown eyes smiling at him and inviting him into their warmth. They get replaced by blue eyes, coldness and resentment. He thinks about the way Max ignored him the whole day long and how he couldn’t do anything about it (and how it hurt, because last year he could have) and he lights the cigarette with clumsy hands.  
The first inhale makes his lungs churn with a sharp sting and tears form in the corners of his eyes, but he can suppress a coughing fit. Jev next to him has obviously no such battles to fight and Charles wins it with a little less grace than Daniel.  
He watches the ocean while Jev pours the amber-coloured whisky into way too big and cheap plastic cups.  
They don’t say a toast, all the words in the world wouldn’t be able to express what they feel and how deeply they share that emotion. Daniel raises his cup to the ocean in front of him, though, before he downs all the liquor with one large swig. He flinches at the taste and if the nicotine didn’t make him cough, the alcohol sure does.  
He feels the familiar burn, the warmth spreading in his stomach and realises he should have had a proper dinner. 

Charles sips from his cup and the orange sunset makes his eyes look just like the whisky in its alabaster glass bottle. The warm breeze ruffles his hair playfully.  
“It was here.” Charles’s voice sounds far away as if he’d speak from the depth of his memory. “They scattered his ashes in this bay.”  
Daniel nudges his shoulder and pours himself another cup.  
“I’m okay with that. He loved the sea. Do you remember how he always tried to persuade you to go scuba diving with him?”  
Jev snorted at the paleness spreading around Charles’s nose.  
“Bruh, yeah, I like my feet dry, thank you very much.”  
They chuckle and Charles rolls up his trousers legs up to his knees, curling his toes into the sand. Remainders of the day’s warmth still stick in the tiny grains and tickle his soles.  
Jev takes a sip from his cup and leans back against the wood, the hand casually holding the cigarette propped up on his knee.  
“The last weeks have been hard.” Charles says then and all humour is drained from his voice.  
Daniel licks the tangy taste of whisky from his lips and takes another drag from his cigarette before answering.  
“You still got nightmares, don’t you?”  
“Yeah.” It’s more an exhale than an actual word and Charles closes his tired eyes. “Always the same two and it gets worse every year. They sometimes follow me for days, even when I’m awake. But that isn’t the worst thing. The worst thing is, that I sometimes _don’t_ think about it, about him, for a whole day and I’m almost safe. I almost made it, you know? And then something happens, a song plays on the radio or someone mentions a certain dish. You’re at a random place with random people and suddenly it hits you and the pain is back.”  
Jev and Daniel look at each other for a moment, before Jev nods.  
“Yeah, I know the feeling.”

“I wish, I could have said goodbye to Jules.”  
It’s a punch to their gut, hearing these words from Charles, this name and the pain entailed.  
“We’ve been to the hospital…”  
“No, I mean, a real one, a proper goodbye.” Charles empties his cup, fills it again and empties that, too. Jev and Daniel just stare. They have been times and meetings like this where they had watched over Charles and stopped him from drinking too much, but now he’s old enough and their sad triumvirate is built on the very grounds of having equal rights – to pain, breakdowns and access to alcohol.  
Daniel’s already slightly drowsy mind pre-empts him by opening his mouth before giving him the chance to collect his thoughts.  
“Jules always left when the party was at its best.”  
Jev lowers his head and chuckles so sadly, Daniel has to bite back tears at the sound and sniffles a laugh at the same time at a memory that just flooded his brain as if it was washed up the shore with the incoming tide at their feet.  
“Yeah, do you remember the night, where he came home to the dormant late and got lost on his way to bed and curled up to Vettel instead?”  
They all laugh and Charles nearly drops his cigarette.  
“God, his face in the morning! And Jules just played along and tried to convince him that they went to bed together.”  
Jev splutters and spills some of his whisky into the golden sand. Daniel laughs even harder at that and buries his face in his hands. Charles chuckles incredulously.  
“He stopped drinking with us after that.”  
“Yeah, unfortunately, but it was fun while it lasted.” 

They sit for hours like this. They exchange memories, bask in Jules’s presence lingering around this beach, their memories of him and their own shared longing for someone who will never walk this earth again. They talk about Daniel’s time with him in Italy, the early beginnings. He reminisces parties and conversations and working on the karts for hours on end.  
Jev remembers how close their battles were and how close they’ve been. Brothers, always ready to pull shenanigans and catch each other after disappointments and setbacks.  
Charles is silent for most of the time, but every time he speaks, his voice his heavy with longing. He talks about their childhood, shell picking, karts and about their neighbour’s cat they overfed with tuna once until it vomited on his parent’s bed.  
Slowly their memories blur into the chilly air and their words grow more slurred with freely flowing liquor and daylight fading. Finally their words stop and silence takes over.  
The sunset got replaced by a bright moon and twinkling stars and their melancholy made way for drunk taciturnity.  
At some point Charles gets up and struts towards the water, fairly swaying in the process. He picks up small shells and stones and throws them into the tide with wide movements. Daniel watches him and smokes his eighth cigarette of the night. Jev next to him lets sand run through his fingers and cradles his half-empty cup in the other hand.  
When Daniel reaches for the whisky bottle he realises it is halfway empty as well. His movements are uncoordinated and slack and he chuckles at himself drunkenly.  
Jev just shakes his head when he offers him a refill and tilts his head back to watch the starts. The silent _plop-plop_ of whatever it is that Charles tosses into the water is the only sound cutting through the calm waves lapping against the beach. 

Daniel nearly chokes on the pungent taste of his cigarette, when his phone vibrates in his jeans pocket. He tucks the smouldering cigarette between his lips and fiddles for the buzzing source of disturbance. The bright light of the screen dazzles him for a moment and he squints his eyes, when the words dance in front of his blurred vision. He inhales smoke with hollowed cheeks, when he sees Max’s name flash across the screen.  
**“I just realised, what day it is. Fuck, Daniel, I don’t know, what to say. I’m a huge idiot and I’m so, so sorry. Please come home, Daniel. Please.”**  
“And where would that be, fucker?” Daniel mutters around the filter of his cigarette and the smoke stings in his tired eyes.  
Jev next to him pets his thigh and Daniel tucks away the phone without answering. He’s too drunk for that anyway. 

Charles is still busy throwing stones and shells into the incoming tide, but his movements are growing slack and his jeans is soaking wet up to his knee pit.  
“You think, he’s going to drown himself?” Daniel asks, stubs out his cigarette in the sand and takes a huge sip from the whisky bottle, because who needs glasses anyway?  
“Nah, I don’t think so.” Jev murmurs, voice slurred with alcohol and grief. His head drops to Daniel’s shoulder.  
“Have you ever thought about it?” Daniel murmurs and does so without thinking about it twice. He feels Jev going rigid next to him and still can’t keep himself from pushing. It’s how he’s wired. “Following him?”

There is a silence and it grows heavier with every second until Jev chuckles humourlessly and digs his naked toes into the cold and damp sand.  
“It’s funny, but I actually haven’t. I mean, I was so close to starving myself to death, but I actually had no intention in dying.” Jev takes another cigarette from the pack and Daniel admires his smooth and still shockingly sober movements.  
“I always thought I was immortal, you know?” Daniel does and it scares him. “I always thought, that no matter what I did, how often I vomited my innards out before races and passed out afterwards… I never really thought, I would actually be in danger. Not until I really broke down and-” he interrupts himself and shrugs. “You know the story.”  
Daniel does and he hates himself for it more than he can fathom.  
“I should have said something. They never should have done this to you.”  
Suddenly, there is Jev’s warm hand on his thigh again and Daniel realises too late he’s crying.  
“I’ve done that to myself more than anyone else. More than anyone else, you hear me? I just wasn’t ready for the task and forced myself into it.” He spreads his long skinny legs and crosses his feet in an almost relaxed gesture. A calm half-smile spreads on his lips. “I’m happy I didn’t make it. I’m not cut out for Red Bull Racing.”  
Daniel laughs humourlessly and wipes his wet cheeks. His throat hurts and his lungs burn.  
“Yeah, tell me about it.” He mutters and keeps watching Charles, who stands at the beach with incoming water washing around his knees and his hands hanging limply by his sides.  
“Max is. You are.”  
“I was, Jev, I’m not anymore.”  
“What’s changed?”  
_God, if I only knew_ , Daniel thinks and ruffles his hair. He wants to contemplate his next words, think them through, weigh them, but they stumble over his tongue and out of his mouth before he can second-guess a single one of them.  
“I wasn’t able to save you. I wasn’t able to save Jules. And sometimes it feels like I’m not able to save Max. And you know, I love you, and you know, I’ve loved Jules, but Max is on a completely different level. He shook me to the core. He is _everything_ , but he is so dark at times and surrounded by people that want to break him by lulling him in and making him believe he is unbeatable. But he isn’t and I know, because I’ve fucking watched my best friend die and I lost you and that was horrible. But Max, I mean, losing him would…” Daniel has to stop because there are no words left anymore. Emptiness fills his stomach and his heart and gets replaced by the calm murmur of the nightly ocean in front of him.  
The hand on his thigh tightens and Daniel meets Jean-Eric’s smiling eyes.  
“He knows, he’s only human, Daniel, Max doesn’t strike me as an idiot. A hot-headed, stubborn boy at times, yes, but not an idiot. He knows the risk. And more importantly, he knows you and what you’re capable of.”

Daniel snorts and massages his temples. He can already feel a headache knocking at the back of his scull that will certainly bank up into a crucial migraine come morning and hangover.  
“Yeah, he knows me so well that he didn’t even have a clue what’s going on today.”

“You fought with Max because of Jules?”  
It takes Daniel by surprise and his breathing hitches. His brain is slurred with liquor, synapses refuse to connect and he blinks a couple of times.  
“I… I wouldn’t put it that way, but, yeah, maybe.”  
“Oh, Daniel.”  
Jev gets to his feet, stretches his stiff legs and shakes his head. He starts pacing back and forth in front of Daniel, his naked feet digging deep into the moist sand.  
“That’s fucked up.”  
“Yeah, tell me about it.” He says again but this time his voice is tinted with anger and irritation. He has to look up at Jev and it makes him dizzy.  
“Yeah, and you know what? Fuck him! Fuck Jules!”  
“Jev!” Daniel more or less shrieks and his head snaps up abruptly. He stares at Jean-Eric in a mixture of surprise and anger.  
“No! It’s unbelievable how much power he has over us!” Jev continues without faltering or blinking. “It’s wrong!”  
Suddenly, there is blinding wrath wavering around the Frenchman despite tears pooling in his eyes. But Jev isn’t done ranting and he kicks up sand and algae from the ground.  
“A dead guy is about to ruin your relationship and he does it by the mere fact of _dying_. It’s not like he talked you out of it or gave wrong advice, he made you fight by fucking dying and leaving us behind! I mean, isn’t it fucked up that the way a person dies is more significant than the way they lived?! Isn’t that fucked up?!”  
Daniel can’t hold back any longer. He staggers to his feet and spreads his arms in a wide gesture, cigarette in one, Whisky bottle in the other hand.  
“Jesus, _this_ is fucked up! Everything we’re doing here is fucked up. But do you really want to spit on him like that and turn your back on him for having that accident and losing his goddamn _life_?!”  
“HOW COULD I?!” Jev yells, as his wrath breaks loose, and his voice gets carried over the beach and up the hills like rolling thunder. “He can’t defend himself, he won’t answer! He is dead, Daniel. Jules is dead and he will never come back!”

What follows is the deafening scream of all-consuming silence. Jev pants and presses his lips together, while Daniel stares at him in complete shock. He can’t blink, he can’t breathe, he can’t cry, he just stares. He sees regret flicker across Jev’s features and tears stream down his tired and pale face. He shakes his head and gulps loudly. 

All of a sudden there is sob reverberates through the night and it isn’t Jev’s. Charles stands behind the Frenchman (and has stood there all the time) and now a ground shaking sob detangles itself from his throat and makes his whole body tremble. 

“Oh god, he’s dead and he will never come back and I miss him. I miss him so much!” he cries and then the pain gets too much and his legs buckle underneath him. Daniel snaps out of his freeze, murmurs a soft “Oh, dear.” and stumbles in his direction.  
He reaches and catches Charles just in time before his knees hit the wet sand. Charles’s head collides with Daniel’s collar bone and they both sink to their knees at the impact, Daniel steadying Charles’s upper body.

Charles doesn’t realise any of it. He breaks down and gets caught by Daniel’s firm grip, gets pressed into the warmth of his chest.  
Daniel’s heart shatters into a myriad pieces just like the little grains of sand underneath his naked feet, when Charles’s soul breaks apart from all the grief and pain. It banged against the floodgates the Monegasque struggled for weeks to keep intact, but now the forces of nature break loose and tear down every wall he built around him ever since that goddamned day in Suzuka. It sounds like Charles’s lungs burst at any second when he sobs. His fingernails dig painfully into Daniel’s arm. The hurt washes over him in one gigantic wave, agony hitting him like a brick wall.  
Daniel just holds him. He feels more sober now, startled and shook. He cups the back of Charles’s head and pulls him closer still. His whole body shakes with sorrow and desperation and the incredibly painful realisation of death itself.

Jev stands next to them and has a first firmly pressed against his lips in an otherworldly effort to suppress a yell of regret. He is drunk and a mess, but he shouldn’t have said that and he knows it.  
He ruffles his hair and scrapes over his skull until it hurts so bad, the sting drowns out the gaping hole in his stomach, the place that belonged and will always belong to Jules. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He whispers and Daniel nods into Charles’s hair. Charles is a bundle of quivering sobs and tears in his lap and Daniel has no idea how to handle this situation. He knows, he cries himself and can’t stop.  
The tears have found a way through his armour of steeliness and composure and now that enough alcohol circles through his system, he can’t hold them back any longer.  
“I know, Charles, I know. I miss him, too.”  
It’s a tired attempt to mirror Charles, guide him and show him he isn’t alone in this, but neither of them have lost their best friend, brother and godfather in one.  
Charles mutters something into the moist fabric of his shirt and it makes Daniel groan in pain.  
“No, Charles, no, you didn’t. That wasn’t your fault!”  
Jev leans in closer the second Charles lifts his head an sniffles.  
“I stole his seat. I wanted that seat with Ferrari so bad and Jules was the one deserving it and now it’s mine and it should have been his.”  
“Oh, God.” Jev mutters before sinking to his knees and cradling Charles's cheeks. He talks to him in French and after a few seconds Daniel is lost in the soft flow of words and Charles’s sniffles and doesn’t understand a word anymore.  
He doesn’t have to. So he simply stays where he is and draws long soothing circles over Charles’s shaking back.  
Slowly his breathing slows down and he eventually stops shaking in Daniel’s arms.  
His eyes are rimmed red and his cheeks are wet.  
Charles doesn’t say a word, when he curls up in the sand and uses his own jacket as a pillow. Daniel doesn’t know what to say and neither does Jev.  
Daniel takes a generous swig from the whisky and hands it to Jean-Eric, as they sit down next to Charles and contemplate what just happened in silence.  
Daniel slings his arms around his upper body and tries to warm up his cold hands. Jev next to him clears his throat and hands him a lighter when Daniel can’t find his old one.  
“Why did you fight with Max, Daniel?” Jev asks out of the blue, after he peeled his jacket from his shoulders and draped it over Charles’s sleeping form.  
Daniel blinks and tries to remind his brain how thinking worked.  
“He doesn’t care. And I’m done trying to make him care.”  
“Yes, I get that. Have you ever thought that maybe he does care but doesn’t dare to ask?”  
Daniel frowns and feels nausea rising up his stomach. He washes the sour taste down with more Whisky.  
“Why wouldn’t he just ask then? He’s never been one to beat about the bush.”  
Jev looks at him and Daniel can’t shake the feeling of being belittled an awful lot by all the care and understanding in Jev’s brown eyes.  
“No, he is afraid to drive you away and you know, that he’s rightly doing so. The question is, is it because you don’t trust him with Jules or you don’t trust him with yourself?” 

Daniel is taken by complete surprise _again_ and he curses under his breath.  
“What would you know about that?”  
“I told André everything. It took me a while, but I opened up to him and it was the best decision I ever made. It was scary as hell, but André knows everything about me and Jules and you and what we are doing here. It was so fucking hard, but it was worth it. It is worth it.”  
Daniel can’t keep himself from jeering.  
“Yeah, when everything is so fucking peachy, why is he bailing off to Porsche then?!”  
But they have shot their bolts and Charles huffing in his sleep is an unnecessary proof for it. They’ve already yelled at each other tonight and Daniel doesn’t want to put up a fight, if he’s being honest with himself (which he actually hasn’t been a lot lately).  
Jev smiles sadly and rearranges his jacket covering Charles’s sleeping body.  
“I’ll fix that. It’s true, what I said earlier, although I shouldn’t have said it like that. Facing a friend’s death is like facing death itself, the inevitability of the end. Most people don’t have to think about it, but we make a living from putting ourselves in danger almost every day.”  
Daniel smirks at that because he couldn’t have said it any better. Jev licks his lips and shakes his head.  
“And we do it, because we love it. Jules loved it. The danger is one thing, death is another. The worst part is that people seem to forget about Jules’s life. They only remember his death and the horror and the pain.”  
He fumbles for another cigarette without letting go of Charles’s hand, the younger one still firmly clings to in his sleep.  
“And it makes you think about life, right? Losing someone you love?”  
Daniel stays silent, Max's smiling face ghosting though his fogged brain. Then he gets what Jev wants to say and lowers his head as new tears form in his eyes.  
“You want us to stop, don’t you? Meeting every year, remembering Jules?”  
Jev shakes his head and exhales cold smoke into the chilly night air.  
“No, we will still remember him, but we can’t keep bottling it up for a whole year and then letting it all out in one go. We need to stop this for our own sake.”  
Daniel doesn’t say anything and Jev doesn’t expect an answer. His throat is soar and his lungs feel like crunched paper bags.

“Isn’t it fucked up that his death affects us more than his life did?”  
Daniel mutters eventually and exhales bitter smoke through his nostrils.  
“It is, but I guess, it’s natural, too.”  
“People only mention him in connection with safety concerns, the halo, Japan or France.”  
“Or Charles.”  
_And the both of us_ , Daniel thinks and sees the same thought flicker behind Jev’s brown eyes.  
“Do you think, he’ll come out of it?” _the grief, the pain, the darkness _he adds mentally and trusts Jev to read his thoughts again.  
“Certainly. It will take time, but I’ve never met a stronger person than him and I’m saying that in all honesty and sincerity. Charles is a warrior, armoured and sharpened and trained, but most of all he’s human and positive and – yes, he will make it through this. We all will.”__

Daniel huffs and tries to imagine waking up tomorrow. His head hurts like hell and he feels a massive hangover forming in his churning stomach and droused brain.  
 _I’d be okay with not waking up, too_ , he jokes narcissistically.  
Jev next to him hums something in his delirious half-sleep and Daniel can’t stop himself from smiling.

“Yeah, I guess so.”  
He murmurs nevertheless. _Keep pushing_ , he thinks, _Once in hell things can only get better_.  
Daniel leans back against the driftwood and closes his eyes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for sticking with me through this one, that was tough to write.  
> Tell me what you think about it, it would really help! 
> 
> Read you soon!  
> Charona


	3. what you left behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y’all.  
> Yes, I’m still here and this story is not over yet, so let’s finish it now!  
> Thank you for everything, folks. This story was incredibly tough to write and without your uplifting feedback and gentle nudge it wouldn’t have been possible. Especially **RoaNautica** for all the positivity and encouragement. 
> 
> I hope, I can do you justice and you all enjoy this last chapter.

**Mondy morning**

_Daniel_ opens his eyes and immediately screws them shut again. The dull murmur of the incoming tide competes with the murderously ringing migraine in his skull and his stomach churns just as loudly. All that combined composes a cacophony, which sees him stumbling to his knees, crouching a few feet down the beach and vomiting his innards into the moist sand.  
He retches and coughs and sinks back on his haunches, resting his head on his own chest, icy palms open and covered in tiny grains of sand.  
_This was a mistake_ , he thinks and tries to recollect what has happened last night, but his mind is so drowsy, trying to grasp the blurry pictures makes him dizzy and nauseous again.  
He blinks at the waves rolling towards the beach and squints his eyes at the bright sun slowly climbing up the horizon in her never-ending journey across the sky.  
Daniel’s stomach rumbles again and he spits out the taste of sour bile and stale whisky, tired and disgusted with himself.  
He hugs his own legs with shaky and cold hands and rests his head on his knees for a moment, shutting out the bright morning light and concentrating on breathing for a moment. In and out.  
The trembling fades together with the night, besieged by the sun and its warmth slowly seeping through the moist fabric of his shirt.  
Daniel opens his burning eyes, thinking of one person and one person only. He fumbles for his phone and groans, when he realises the battery abandoned him over night.  
He looks around and finds his companions curled up against the driftwood, Jev’s jacket still firmly around Charles’ shoulders and the youngster’s hair a mess rumbled by sea air and sleep. _He looks so incredibly young_ , Daniel thinks and he has to remind himself that Charles in fact _is_ young. He just experienced too much for his age and it made him grow up so much quicker than other people. 

He staggers to his feet and kneels down next to them.  
“Hey, boys, let’s go home, mh?”  
Jev opens his eyes and wipes his beard, tiredness deeply carved into the shadows underneath his eyes. Charles next to him grumbles in his sleep, before waking up, too, a greenish hue covering his cold cheeks.  
They sit there for a moment, hungover, tired and destroyed in ways that reminds Jev of his worst nights at RBR, Daniel of loneliness during the training camps dominating his youth in Europe and Charles of the bruises after terrible crashes.  
Daniel licks his lips and tries to come up with something to say, something suitable and intelligent, but Charles is faster than him, as he’s been all season.

“Let’s go home and not come back.” He frowns at the husky tone of his voice and for a moment the Aussie’s afraid he might puke, as well, bet the Monegasque shakes his head and gulps.  
“I heard what Jev said yesterday and I agree. We need to learn to live with it for good or it will just built up and destroy us.” It’s remarkable how easily he can take up the thread of their conversation from last night, while Daniel still blinks and leans against the brakes of the figurative carousel spinning in his brain with all force.  
Charles eyes look teary-eyed and it may be because of the bright sun basking the beach in the first long stripes of morning light.  
“I want to be happy again.”  
It’s a simple statement and at the same time it breaks down what all three of them wish and long for more than anything. Racing, family, love, money. Shelter, success, warmth, happiness.

Jev is the first one to nod and get to his feet, digging frozen cold and slightly blue toes into the wet sand. He opens his mouth and closes it again, deciding to preserve Charles’ statement and not tint it with anything as profane as breakfast or taxis.  
Instead he holds out a hand to both of them and hauls Daniel and Charles to their feet. 

They leave their camp of the night covered in eerie silence and stagger up the path to the parking lot on wobbly legs. They part in front of their cars, Charles politely declining the invitation of being taken to the city (Monaco? Nice? Daniel himself isn’t sure what he meant by making that offer). Instead he looks back at the ocean again.  
“I think, I need another hour or so. Can’t really think about going back just yet.”  
_You still don’t call it home._ , Daniel states mentally during their hug and draws a circle over Charles’ back, just like he did yesterday. The motion reminds of the previous night, the quiver going through the younger man, the soul crushing agony and he’s elated to see almost none of it anymore. Tiredness and a shiver from the fresh breeze, but less pain and doubt. It’s as if all of them have changed overnight, drained of tears and emotions, less heavy shoulders and lighter steps.  
Daniel hugs Jean-Eric as well and feels the Frenchman relax against him a little bit.  
“You talk to Max, okay?”  
“If you talk to André.”  
Question marks flash up in hazel eyes and a dry chuckle hits Jev’s neck, as Daniel smirks widely.  
“I’m not blind, Cheri. I can see that something happened. Sort it out. You’re cut out for each other.”  
Using the same words Jev used yesterday is a bold move to make, but it pays off, when the Frenchman smiles warmly and squeezes his shoulder.  
“Alright, point taken.” _faith restored_. 

When he drives off the parking lot, he throws a glance back through the rear view mirror.  
“Maybe we have changed, even if it’s just a little bit.”, he mutters to himself, turns off the radio and steps on the throttle.

_Jev_ stops still for a second and looks down at his phone.

His text and André’s answer from this morning seem to stare back at him in the dark hallway in a chic arrondissement of Paris.  
**Jev: Are you still in Paris?**  
**André: Yes. And I haven’t packed yet, either.**

Jev takes a deep breath and puts the phone back into his pocket, filling the staircase with dark blue shadows again. He’s texted him this morning before getting into the car and driving back to Paris.  
It took him almost eleven hours, but Jev needed that time to sort out his mind and come up with all the things he wants to say to André.  
_One thing at a time_ , he thinks and takes another deep breath.  
He fumbles for his keys and opens the door to his apartment with shaky fingers. The first thing he notices are the lights. André turned on the warm standard lamp in the living room and a couple of candles draw dancing patterns onto the kitchen walls.  
There is no sign of André, though, and Jev is thankful for that. He retreats to the bathroom and takes a couple of minutes for himself and a cool shower. 

When he steps out onto the balcony a few minutes later, André’s sitting in the lounger, wine glass next to him on the still warm deck boards, reading glasses low on his nose and eyes fixated on a book places on his lap. It’s a common scene for Jev to come home to and his fingers itch to grab his camera and preserve the image for ever, the calm André radiates, the way his lips move from time to time, voicelessly forming German half-sentences Jev doesn’t understand.  
_I’m home_ , is what he wants to say, “Hey.”, is what he ends up saying in a voice that’s raspy and dark after not being used all day.  
André looks up at him and smiles, before he discards his glasses and lets the book slip from his legs without marking the page.  
“Hey, you.”  
Their hands meet for a brief touch of digits intertwining, before Jev lets go and sits down next to him on the bench.  
He fidgets with some loose threads of André’s sweatpants he blatantly stole from his side of the closet. His elation of the still neatly arranged shirts and jeans has been almost palpable. 

They sit there for a couple of minutes, book forgotten and beautiful sunset in front of them irrelevant. André tries to find Jev’s eyes, but the Frenchman has become pretty good at evading him, although the atmosphere is different now. The coldness evaporated into the warm summer’s evening, got replaced by uncertainty and something that looks suspiciously like shame.  
Jev eventually sighs and shakes his head.  
“I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. I was an idiot. Can we talk about it?” 

_André_ ’s paced through the apartment for most of the day and ended up cooking cleaning the bathroom and finally he has given in to the urge of calming his nerves and opened a bottle of wine. He’s waited for Jev to come home and he has never felt so incomplete without him and at the same time antsy and afraid of his return.  
He’s had a moment for himself and he’s had two glasses of red wine, he’s a bit more relaxed. It all crumbles down, when he hears the keys jingling in the hallway and Jev dropping his bag in front of the bedroom door – a habit André annoyingly mocks every time he stumbles over it on their way to bed. 

Now Jev sits next to him, freshly showered and in his sweatpants and looks more beautiful than André can comprehend. The Parisian wipes his eyes and sighs, when André nods.  
“You’re not a coward. I’m sorry, I said that.”  
André offers him his wine glass and Jev takes it with a trembling hand. He stays silent, though, giving Jean-Eric all the time he needs. _Always._  
“But _I_ am scared, André, I’m so fucking scared, that it might tear us apart, when you leave. I’ve never had a long distance relationship for the very same reason. And finding you here, meeting you here in Paris and falling head over heels in love with you, was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.”  
He says it to the floor boards, but André can see the twinkle in Jev’s eyes and has to fight back the urge to take his hand. _Not yet._

Jev licks his lips frantically, all the things he wanted to say slipping away from him, as he looks up and meets André’s grey eyes, warm and reassuring.  
“I’m scared of losing you.” _Deep breath, come on._ “I lost people to the sport. One way or another. And it hurt so goddamn much. But you’re on a whole other scale. I could _never_ lose you.” _ever._ “And that’s why I snapped. You should have told me earlier, because the truth is better than everything else and no matter what, I can handle it.”  
“I know.” It’s more an exhale than a real word and Jev tries to swallow the lump climbing up his throat. He washes it down with wine and takes a deep breath.  
“Last night was important to me. I thought a lot about the past, but also about the future and us.”  
Up until now André hasn’t thought about this possible being their last conversation as a couple, but now it dawns on him and he shivers despite the beams of warm sunlight basking the balcony in a golden hue. 

“Yesterday, I realised, that I held back an awful lot over the past years. It’s not like I hid from you, but I defied myself happiness for what happened to Jules. I thought, I deserved the misery, the treatment at Red Bull, the demotions, because he wasn't there anymore to help me. I somehow thought that if he wasn't here anymore, why should I be? Why should I care? But that changed when I met you.” It’s Jev, who takes his hand and André’s heart skips a beat. “You showed me that I didn’t. You made me realise my potential, my possibilities racing-wise and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. But it’s more than that.” Soft warm eyes lock with his and they both take a breath. “You didn’t show me what a driver I am and could be, but also what kind of man.” _lover, friend, brother, son._ “And it’s time to focus on that now.”  
Another lick of lips, another sip of wine, liquor almost black in the fading sunlight. He puts the glass down and looks into the curious grey eyes staring back at him, stripping him bare in the twilight of orange light and blue shadows.  
“I love you, André. More than anything. And I want this to work. I want you to be happy and know that right now you’re not. Not with DS. I can cope with losing you to another team, but I could never cope with losing _you_ and that’s the only thing that matters to me. So I won’t just _let_ you go, but I _want_ you to go and kick my ass next year with a different team.” A soft smirk, click of his tongue. “If you can.” 

Suddenly André slips from the lounger, cups his face with both hands and kisses him as if he’d never wanted to kiss anyone else in his entire life. Passionate and open and warm, thumbs cradling his cheekbones and soft exhale sweeping over his prickling skin.  
They share the taste of wine, as André’s tongue meets his and he realises in that very moment that they still are the same people, that signed with Techeetah last year and parted under such a bad sign yesterday – and at the same time they both morphed into completely different versions of themselves. Strong, daring, confident.  
The kiss grows more relaxed, languid and exquisite, as Jev leans back and pulls André with him, the German wrapping an arm around him and draping his leg over his thigh.  
_Nothing has changed._

They part and Jev realises the sun set behind the apartment on the other side of the street, dipping the balcony in violet and blue shadows.  
“I love you.”  
André knows, he doesn’t have to say it and does it anyway. _Because I the fuck can and want to._

Jev’s eyes change and he rubs his tired eyes. He is still terribly hungover, but the wine is sweet and loosens his tongue.  
“You could marry me, you know?”  
“Okay, now you’re fucking with me!”  
A smug laugh, raised eyebrows.  
“Always.”  
A quick pause and Jev taking a mental note to do exactly that. _Maybe before Saudi Arabia, just to make a point._  
André sees the milling thoughts behind Jev’s furrowed eyebrows and the sparkle in his eyes and shakes his head, smirk evident.  
“We could go public, though. It would be a first step in the right direction, make a point. There is nothing they could take away from us, you’re champion, I’ve got Le Mans.”  
_I know, three times. God, I love you._  
Jev just nods and presses a kiss into André’s neatly arranged hair, out of words for a moment. 

“I have to apologise, too, love.” André mutters and nips Jean-Eric’s protest in the bud by shaking his head. “I should have told you earlier. We should have been open about all of this. You trusted me with so much already and I have neither an excuse nor an explanation for not returning the favour. I’m sorry, I lied.”

That’s it. They are back at square one, scores even, lights gone green with them next or each other on the line.  
André reaches for the wine bottle and refills the glass before returning to the exact same spot by Jev’s side and resting the glass on the Frenchman’s chest.  
Jean-Eric leans his forehead against André’s temple for a second before a broad grin splits his lips and the nightly shade of blue slowly blanketing the Parisian sky. 

“I’ve still got one question: Why? From all the teams that court you, why would you pick Porsche?”  
André takes a swig from the glass to buy himself more time, before he has to answer. His hands are warm and rest on Jean-Eric’s stomach, feeling his even intakes of breath. Jev’s voice is raspy and mockingly desperate, because it’s the way he copes with the reality of André leaving and André couldn’t love him more for it.  
“What’s wrong with Porsche?” he asks with a side glance and a dirty grin. “Would you prefer me as a Virgin?”  
“That train has clearly left the station.”  
His smirk is smug and Jev snorts a laugh. His eyes meet André’s and they think of exactly the same lazy mornings and late nights in bed and sometimes even motorhomes around the globe. _Sleeping buddies. If they only knew._ Jev looks away and shakes his head, perversely amused.

André clicks his tongue in approval. He hands his glass to Jean-Eric, who takes a generous gulp from the red wine. André watches him closely, fondness still daring and spilling into the grey air around them.  
“So, why not Porsche? What’s wrong with them?”  
“You know that cheetahs would eat horses, don’t you?”  
It takes André by surprise, but then he gets, what Jev is saying and a wide grin splits his lips. He leans back into the cushion, but Jev pulls him closer again, until his head rests in the crook of his neck. The Parisian fights the urge of lighting a cigarette. _Maybe it’s just one of those habits I’d better break, too._

André senses the mood and intertwines their fingers lazily splayed on Jev’s chest.  
“Who says we’re going to play by the rules? We could be different. We could be a horse and a cheetah hunting virgins.”  
Jev lifts his head and grins at him belligerently. His eyes look tired, his skin is pale, but his grin is beautiful and daring.  
“And birds.”  
They look at each other for a second and over André’s lips ghosts that smile, Jev loves more than anything else in the world.  
They keep up the seriousness for another moment and then they burst into pubertal chuckles, which reverberate over the balcony and mingles with the golden sunset over Paris. 

_Daniel_ ’s heart leaps through his ribcage when he opens up the door to his flat in Monaco and it almost topples out of his chest as he’s hit with the full force of Max Verstappen crashing against him and wrapping him in a tight hug. Solid body, strong arms, familiar scent that banishes the remnants of ghosts looming behind Daniel and threating to cross the threshold, as well.  
“God, I’m so glad, you’re home!”  
Daniel lets the bag slip from his shoulder and is hits the tiled floor with a soft clang. Daniel buries his nose in Max’s neck and clings onto his back with open palms pressed against the fabric of his shirt.  
_I am home._  
“Sorry, it took me so long. Couldn’t find a parking space.”  
It’s a banality, unnecessary and humourless, but Daniel is antsy to an amount that makes joking the only way of coping with it.  
“I know, typical Monegasque chaos. I wonder how Charles survived growing up here.”  
_So you’re nervous as hell, too._ , Daniel thinks and clings onto him a little bit tighter as if he could press the nerves out of him.  
They finally let go of one another and Max’s bit his lips bloody at three spots. Daniel lets a thumb trace over the patches and shakes his head.  
“Don’t.” It’s too late anyway now and still Daniel tries to fix the damage he’s done. 

“I should have known.”  
“I should have texted you back.”

They say it in unison and it makes them grin at each other. Daniel tries to remember the things he came up with during his long drive back into the city, but it seems like Max’s cobalt blue eyes drained his brain of words, replacing it with blue and only blue.  
He leans his forehead against Max’s, jarring hair colours mingling in the orange light of the small hallway.  
“H-how was it?” Max asks with a shaky voice and takes Daniel’s cold hands into his own warm ones.  
“More or less as terrible as expected.” Daniel says it with a smirk and for Max it’s enough to lift his head and stare at him intently.  
“You know, lots of drinking and crying and a massive hangover.” Daniel grins, but it doesn’t reach his eyes and the sight makes Max gulp frantically. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”  
“We won’t meet like this again.”  
Max looks at him questioningly and guides their way to the living room with confident steps and it makes Daniel realise that Max belongs into this flat just as much as he belongs into his heart. 

Before Max can pull him onto the sofa, Daniel stops still. He needs the space, the possibility to retreat and keeps standing in the middle of the room, fingertips still holding onto Max’s, who looks up at him with big eyes.

“We decided to stop meeting every year. We need to leave it behind.”  
“Jules?”  
There is just a small hint of pain in Max’s voice and Daniel bites his lips, indecisive whether the lack of emotion should unnerve him or make him grateful that Max isn’t as tangled up in the whole mess as he is. He lets go of his hand and wipes his cheeks instead.

“Yes.”  
It’s the starting signal Daniel needed and it breaks out of him, all of a sudden, no alcohol needed this time, just piled up words, sorted and ready to be fired from a loaded tongue. Not to hurt, but to vent. Not to push Max away, but to let him in.  
_Another breath, then go._  
“Losing Jules broke me in half, Max. I loved him.” A soft chuckle fills the small space between them, as Daniel contemplates these words again, already stumbling over his own thoughts too fast for him to catch up. “Not like that. But he was a true friend, the first I found in Europe, when I was just a scrawny, loud kid from Perth, all wide eyes and excitement. Jules held me down and gave me courage at the same time like only a real friend can. We spent nights just talking and dreaming and although we dreamt of the exact same thing, we never became rivals. I was never jealous of him for winning, instead it was just pure joy seeing him on the podium.”  
Max bites his lip and looks at the floor, getting the point and hating the pain tinging Daniel’s quiet voice.  
“There was a time where I thought we were immortal. We both made it to the big stage and it was the best feeling in the whole world. Then Japan happened.”  
Daniel’s speech comes to a halt and he feels the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. _Even after all this time, it’s still so fucking hard to talk about it._  
“Japan happened and I saw the car in the gravel and I recognised it and it was the worst feeling in the whole world. It was just so much fear. I wanted to know what happened, but no one told me anything. Then the waiting. That god-awful time of nothingness.” He wipes his eyes again, now pacing up and down in front of the sofa, Max’s sharp blue eyes following his every movement. “I mean, I never thought about the possibility of him not making it, you know? It just wasn’t in my head. And then Christine called and told me and I just sat there” he points at the spot on the sofa he usually occupies, in front of the TV, remotes on the sideboard right next to the armrest. “I sat there and I couldn’t even cry. I was empty, just like that. And then the funeral and the burial at sea and being there for Charles and driving and then meeting you.”  
Daniel’s eyes flicker in his direction and Max stares at him like a deer in the headlights.  
“Me?”  
“Yes, you. You turned my life upside down during a time, I didn’t even know where I was myself or who I was, to be honest. You just barged into that garage and tore through it like a fucking hurricane, leaving me completely lost and hopelessly in love at the same time.”  
There is the hint of a smile ghosting over Max’s lips and his eyes light up the room with a mischievous glint.  
“And you’ve only known me as the funny kid, the joker, the badger and smiley face. I wanted to be that for you, but I couldn’t back then, when one of the most important people of my life had just died doing the exact same thing, the person I was about to fall irrevocably in love with does every fucking weekend.”

_Max_ understands that this is the starting signal for him now, the moment he’s waited for ever since Daniel fumbled for his keys in the hallway.  
He gets to his feet, walks over to Daniel and catches the widely gesturing hands in a firm grip.  
“Listen, before you talk yourself into any more trouble, let me tell you something.” He takes a deep breath, reminding himself of all the things he didn’t put into his text last night and wanted to convey face-to-face, directly, _now_.

“I lost people, too, Daniel. In a different way, but still – I grew up without a mother or a woman that could come close to deserve the term. My father treated every woman he’s ever met like shit and maybe that’s one of the reasons why I fell for you in the end.” _Another man, my rival, my teammate._ “Of course my mother didn’t die, thank God! But I still grew up without her and it changed me.”  
He takes a deep breath, which gets stuck in his windpipe and builds a sharp contrast to his next words.

“I know you wanted to protect me and I was too fast for you.” _terrible phrasing_ , he thinks, although the corner of Daniel’s mouth twitches upward slightly. “I dived into this whole thing, us, way too fast and hot-headed and I should have known better. That isn’t your fault, I should have known back then, what you’ve lost. I’m an asshole for not realising that Jules was the brother you never had and I’m so sorry.” Daniel huffs and it sounds suspiciously like a sob.  
Max wants to stop there, keep it at the apology, hug Daniel and forget about it, but he can’t afford to back out now, not if they both want to learn something from this.  
So he takes a step in Daniel’s direction, hands raised slightly, palms open. _Keep pushing._  
“All I'm saying is, that I can handle things. I can handle shit and pain and loss. And most of all I can handle _your_ shit, _your_ pain, _your_ loss. You don’t have to hide anything from me. I’m not an outsider, so please don’t make me watch you suffer. I _want_ to be there for you and dry your tears and hold you, when it all gets too much.” He wipes his nose with a defiant movement, annoyed at the tremble in his voice, as all this spills out of him unhindered, heart literally in his mouth and truth dripping from his lips in a completely unknown serenity, which contrasts his burning eyes and trembling fingers.  
“I want you to let me in.” he whispers softly. “I want to catch you, when you fall. Because I love you, Daniel.”  
This time it is a sob and Max’s voice breaks at the next murmured repetition “I love you”. He sees the change in the dark ebony eyes, he got lost in so many times already and that swallow him whole this time as well.

A part of Max breaks apart as he realises a distant part in Daniel unravel itself, the grief, the hurt. It is dragged into the orange sunset and Max sees the barrier, Daniel built around himself, crumble more and more, fissures growing wider and hurt trying to get out at all costs. It spills out of him in hot tears and a gut-wrenching sob, which makes him wrap his arms around his upper body, as if he tried to keep himself from breaking into a myriad pieces.

They’ve never cried in front of each other, not even after Daniel’s last race in blue, when they faced a completely different kind of scary unknown. Now they do. 

Max takes the last step, blinded by a veil of tears clouding his vision and wraps Daniel into a tight hug, burying his face into the dark curls. 

“I love you, I love you, I love you…”  
Again and again, until the words lose their meaning and flow across the room and up the walls. Until Daniel clings to him and lets himself being put together by Max’s warmth and softly muttered words.

Time loses its power and they stand there for minutes and hours and years, as their tears mingle in a salty kiss. They are both a mess, heart’s thumping furiously, eyes burning and yet there is a soft smile playing around Daniel’s lips as they part.  
“I love you, too.”  
A small pause, breathing falling into synch, eyes rimmed red yet bright and hopeful.  
“I’ll tell you everything.”

_Charles_ hasn’t woken up from a nightmare for the first time years. It makes him think, as he spends the day wandering along the beach and later on through Nice. He strolls through the old streets, cobble-stone bumpy underneath his trainers. He looks at his reflection in the window of a shabby second-hand shop and isn’t surprised anymore that no one has recognised him yet. Stubble covers his tired and sunken cheeks, his hair is a complete mess and the old shirt is wrinkled and stained with moss and sand. He knows, he should go back to his flat or find a hotel, eat something, take a shower and go to sleep, but _something_ keeps his feet moving, lets him walk through the old town of a city he hasn’t visited in years. _Hope, maybe_ , he thinks and knows that this isn’t quite right. _Regret?_  
He stares himself in the eyes in the mirroring glass and clenches his jaw.  
_I want to go home_.

And he does.  
It takes him another two hours to get totally lost in an outskirt of the city, streets winding up a soft hill, the ocean just barely visible behind a formation of steeper cliffs and wine yards. He looks up for the first time in hours, feet tired and throat dry and gulps frantically, as he realises where his feet have been carrying him all day.  
He sees the street sign and finally the house, blinking at the sudden thumping of his heart, as he’s dragged into a myriad of memories at once.  
The balloons hanging from the hazelnut tree in the front yard during a birthday party. The traces of rubber on the sidewalk in front of the garage after the tuning of the first kart finally bore fruits and they dashed down the hill screaming and cheering in delight. 

Charles stops still for a second and stares at the neatly planted violet broom heather underneath the boxwood. One Easter he was inconsolable because he couldn’t find his hidden treats anywhere in the garden, while the chocolate bunny’s been sitting in the midst of violet and blue flowers all the time. His godfather helped him and once they found the bunny Charles was the happiest boy to ever raid an Easter basket. 

He almost chokes on tears and turns his gaze to the small wooden door in front of him, the last fence to cross, the last obstacle to overcome.  
Charles blinks, gathers all his courage, pushes the door open and walks up the small path to the door, he knocked on countless times as a child. He sees the shells piled up next to the clay-butterfly painted in aquarelle shades of red and white. His finger trembles and for a second he contemplates turning around. He hasn’t seen her in years, he wonders whether she even still knows, who he is – does he himself, really?

He knocks and the sound is loud in his ears.

The door opens and Charles holds his breath. The woman standing in the doorway clasps a hand in front of her mouth, when she recognises the green eyes, the black mob of hair, the coy smile playing at the corner of his lips. She looks older, cheeks ashen and full lips paler than he remembers them to be. They stare at each other for a long second of blank surprise, shock and fear mingling in the so familiar ebony eyes, Charles is instantly trapped into. The surprise gets replaced by warmth.

Then all of a sudden tears well up in those warm eyes he missed more than anything else, when she looks at him and a soft exhale turns into a half-sob of piled up emotions.  
“Charles.”  
He doesn’t think anyone has ever put more love into the seven letters of his name.  
No accusation of never having called in over four years.  
No hate towards him for signing with Ferrari.  
Not even bitterness about being hit with her own loss just from looking in his grey-green eyes.  
Just sheer and blinding and all-consuming love in warm brown eyes and that makes him stumble up the stairs without giving it a second thought. She stretches out her arms just in time and catches him in a tight embrace.  
_I should have done this a long time ago, I’m so sorry_.

He clings to the fabric of her green shirt, tears seeping through his closed eyelids and not ready yet to face the reality, the confrontation he evaded for so long. She cups the back of his head just like Daniel did yesterday and Charles smiles at the realisation, that he’s not in half as much pain as last night. They stand there for what feels like hours, caught into an almost sacred moment, silence long and peaceful, until Charles pulls back a little and kisses the cheek decorated with the same birthmark she handed down to Jules.  
He smiles at her, when she cups his cheeks and smiles up at him fondly, tears glistening in her eyes, heart poured out, faith restored.  
“Christine.”  
“Welcome home, son.”

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

_Mourning is a bitch._  
It’s a long and winding road, slippery and bumpy, dangerous and elusive. It can drag you down and tear you apart.  
They say, if you find yourself in hell, keep on walking and as impossible as it may seem, it’s true.  
Mourning is pressing down on the brand mark the loved one has engraved into our soul and it hurts so much, words can’t describe the pain (I just tried, really).  
Time helps, sure, but you can wake up one day after having been okay for a month and suddenly the pain is back again, knocking at your door or curling up next to you in bed.  
It never truly stops and you know what? That’s okay. It’s a scar and you’ll carry it with you for as long as you live.  
The most important thing is, letting people in. Don’t bury yourself, literally or figuratively. You will be grumpy. You will hurt people. You will lose a friendship or two. But the right people will be there to catch you, because they love you, they want to shelter and protect you.  
One day the pain will faint into the itch of coalescing skin, mending wounds.  
One day you might smile at the song that reminds you of the person you lost. You might even get up and dance to it. You might travel to the city you always wanted to visit together and take cute photos with strangers, which you never had the courage to do before.  
I know, you’ll try. And they’ll know, too. And they’ll smile down at you from above and be SO proud.  
It’s not about replacing, it’s about living.  
It’s not about faltering, it’s about growing.  
It’s not about losing, it’s about healing.  
It’s not about leaving, it’s about finding – home, hope, love. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and joining me on this journey!  
> There is nothing more to say, I guess, let me know, what you think. 
> 
> A broom heather symbolises home,  
> a boxwood symbolises love that exceeds death. 
> 
> This chapter’s title is from Michael Schulte’s “the love you left behind”, which is like the most beautiful song describing Charles in this story.  
> Please listen to the song after reading this.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise, it'll get better and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. 
> 
> Losing someone, facing mental problems and depression is serious. 
> 
> If you find yourself in a situation where you think there is no getting out of, remember: people love you. People care.  
> Please seek help.


End file.
